Traffic Issues Lead Army to Move Proposed National Museum of the Army

The Army said yesterday that it will build a national museum at Fort Belvoir instead of on a nearby site that local officials warned would worsen the congestion expected with the military's planned relocation of thousands of employees to the area.

The reversal came under pressure from Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) and Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who share local officials' concerns that Belvoir's expansion could create a traffic disaster.

"We've got transportation chaos looming over the horizon here if we're not careful, and the Army museum situation was just going to exacerbate it," Moran said. "What the Army wanted to do was create a destination point on I-95 contiguous to one of the worst traffic congestion points in the Washington area."